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Transit Updates for Greater Grand Rapids


GRDadof3

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4 hours ago, x99 said:

Here's what irritates me, to no end about the Laker Line concept.  All it is is a bunch of fancy bus stops.  They have actually been running that same line with their existing buses and stops for I think over a year now.  It's going to shave effectively ZERO time off of the current route.  Maybe someone can explain to me just why all this money needs to be spent?  I don't get it.  I grilled someone once from, maybe the city or from the Rapid, about just what advantages this would bring, such as more riders or time savings.  They really had no meaningful answers at that point other than "nicer bus stops"...  Anyone know if they've managed to gin up some sort of grand argument for spending the money yet?

Yes, I believe it will shave almost 10 minutes off the ride for GVSU students, the last I heard. It doesn't sound like a lot but if you shaved 10 minutes off my commute time I would never be late for a meeting. 

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The Rapid is hosting an event there today to gather feedback: https://www.facebook.com/events/509346345936476/

Not sure of the details, but there is a group of people that put up a demonstration station of some sort. Dunno if they're officially affiliated with The Rapid, or if they're making a statement on their own.

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On 4/20/2016 at 10:11 AM, organsnyder said:

The Rapid is hosting an event there today to gather feedback: https://www.facebook.com/events/509346345936476/

Not sure of the details, but there is a group of people that put up a demonstration station of some sort. Dunno if they're officially affiliated with The Rapid, or if they're making a statement on their own.

Per a FB posting, it was a pop-up transit station, created in chalk and cones and posters. Everything should be back to "normal" now.

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On 4/20/2016 at 9:21 AM, EastownLeo said:

Looks like they started painting in the cross walk on Fulton under 131. There also seemed to be easels for some sort of presentation possibly.  Not sure how they are going to pull off the cross walk there. Unless there is a light or more obvious sign to stop.

 

 

Vital Streets is also looking at doing a demonstration project for up to 3 months in this area, including adding a center island on Fulton with bollards and improved pedestrian crossing markings. Just saw it on the Design Team agenda. 

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2 hours ago, arcturus said:

Actually the percentages are down much more than the article states for the Pere Marquette if you look at the months since they changed the schedule last year in May.  Maybe some of you might recall that I ranted about the Pere Marquette schedule changes back last year in April and how many people wouldn't want to get up so early or get home so late with the new schedule.  Unfortunately I was right.  In the eleven months that MDOT has provided passenger data since the change (April's data is not available yet,) the Pere Marquette passenger count has declined 14%.

Here's the MDOT site where they publish the raw passenger numbers:

    MDOT railstats

I was thinking about inserting a table of the data I extracted from the MDOT site along with my calculations but that's way too much work.  I have no idea if Megabus benefited from the poor train schedule or not, I suspect most people just drove to Chicago or decided not to make the trip.  

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6 minutes ago, walker said:

Actually the percentages are down much more than the article states for the Pere Marquette if you look at the months since they changed the schedule last year in May.  Maybe some of you might recall that I ranted about the Pere Marquette schedule changes back last year in April and how many people wouldn't want to get up so early or get home so late with the new schedule.  Unfortunately I was right.  In the eleven months that MDOT has provided passenger data since the change (April's data is not available yet,) the Pere Marquette passenger count has declined 14%.

Here's the MDOT site where they publish the raw passenger numbers:

    MDOT railstats

I was thinking about inserting a table of the data I extracted from the MDOT site along with my calculations but that's way too much work.  I have no idea if Megabus benefited from the poor train schedule or not, I suspect most people just drove to Chicago or decided not to make the trip.  

Anecdotally, because of the poor schedule, we've:

  1. Taken the Pere Marquette to Chicago, but took Megabus home.
  2. Drove to Indiana and took the South Shore to Chicago

I'm a huge passenger rail enthusiast, and am willing to make sacrifices in my schedule to be able to take the Pere Marquette. However, the current schedule is just unworkable for many situations.

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On 5/2/2016 at 9:17 AM, arcturus said:

Ridership numbers on Amtrak down again.  Is it any wonder between Megabus and the current train schedule?

Eh.  I'm not surprised.  I said the same thing when they did it, too, but the general consensus then seemed to be "Oh, it'll be great because you can spend longer in Chicago and lots more people will take the train!"  So much for that, I guess.  Any rational business would dump this schedule, but then we're dealing with Amtrak...

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I'm not a fan of the location of the station. It feels like you are let off in an underdeveloped, and underpopulated part of town, next to a shabby warehouse. At night it likely is a less than pleasant experience if you cant get to a car.

I've also seen that the station was not properly opened for a period of time, leaving passengers stranded outside.

The whole thing, even with a new station, still feels like an afterthought service.

 

Edited by GR_Urbanist
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Open house 10 am Wednesday at the station to debut the new roll-on roll-off bicycle service on Amtrak.

At $10 extra you're looking at $84 round trip to Chicago.  Compare that to a weekend only South Shore Line trip for $26 round trip from South Bend + $10/night parking, or $16 round trip from the Dune Park Station with free parking ... plus gas of course.  No extra charge for bikes. 

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  • 3 months later...

Well, in yet another boneheaded move, parking rates are finally getting jacked to the moon this week.  http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/08/parking_rate_spike_hits_this_w.html

Perhaps I'm behind the times, but heavily subsidizing bus transit instead of parking seems like a a very odd choice for small Midwestern snowbelt city.  If you wanted to hand a huge win to Rivertown, Woodland, and the rest of the suburbs, I really couldn't think of a better way to do it than making parking cost even more.  Are we content with downtown having no retail future?  The city seems not to care at all as long as it can cash in on parking for its office park.  

Oh, yeah.  Buses.  And "Millenials".  I forgot.  Well, the day I have to take the bus is the day I pack up my stuff for the green lawns, low crime, and convenient shopping, dining, and great schools of the suburbs.  I mean, why not when you have to drive there all the time anyway just to buy a box of paperclips or a gallon of milk?  I am rapidly losing hope that the city gives a crap about ever having a full service downtown.  Jacking up prices and banking on buses instead of building the parking you need to support a full service downtown?  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  They still cannot get their heads out of the 1960's urban renewal era when the decision was made to surrender retail.  

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11 hours ago, Morris said:

They still have free scooter parking!

http://grcity.us/enterprise-services/Parking-Services/Documents/10871_scooter parking.pdf

You should buy a scooter to commute to downtown!

Let's be like San Fran, and NYC! 

Sadly the scooter parking is mainly used by motorcycles illegally dodging having to pay.

 

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20 hours ago, organsnyder said:

http://grcity.us/enterprise-services/Parking-Services/Pages/Monthly-Cards-Available.aspx

Notice how few monthly passes are available. Why shouldn't they increase prices in response to the demand?

Talk to me about supply and demand when they stop subsidizing more than 75% of the cost of a bus ticket.  The city is jacking up parking prices in a political move to attempt to shift transit modes because they think people will magically start take the bus.  They won't. They will take cars, and they will take them anywhere but downtown.  Every retail study ever written says you need to have convenient and cheap automobile parking to have any hope at a retail environment.  The proper response here is to increase supply in response to the demand.  

What we need is parking so plentiful and so cheap that it makes just as much sense to most people to drive 10 minutes to downtown as does to drive 10 minutes to Rivertown.  Right now, the parking situation such a mess (largely because of the discounted deal the city made with Spectrum) that I would be surprised if we don't start seeing office users leave.  If it hasn't been fixed soon, space elsewhere would make a lot more sense.

 

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9 minutes ago, x99 said:

The proper response here is to increase supply in response to the demand.  

How do you we propose that we increase supply—and the street capacity needed to move cars to/from those parking spots—while also preserving and increasing the density that is vital to a vibrant downtown?

Edited by organsnyder
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1 minute ago, organsnyder said:

How do you we propose that we increase supply—and the street capacity needed to move cars to/from those parking spots—while also preserving and increasing the density that is vital to a vibrant downtown?

Parking ramps above and below grade.  Even under the streets.  This has been the solution for obtaining a vibrant downtown in almost every city of Grand Rapids' size.  

If the City has done an empirical study that shows you can get people who aren't generally of below average income to take a bus in a similarly situated city, I would absolutely love to see it.  

As for streets, there's always cleaning up the Division mess.  From 2013:  http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2013/03/after_inconclusive_results_div.html. The failed experiment has gone on for 5 years now, causing clogs on Fulton, Lyon, Pearl--you name it.  We didn't really have daily traffic issues until some wizard decided to cause them on purpose in the name of a "road diet"...  

 

 

 

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Does part of the logic on the cities part for NOT increasing supply have to do with the concern that we will have a core of nothing but parking garages at street level in 20 years?   I know you don't intend to come off as everyone is an idiot and we should just let you be the standard maker.  Can you please present the other side of the argument to your ironclad opinions?  It's hard for someone like me who does not have that knowledge base to see the full picture.   There has to be logical counter arguments to your emphatic ones.

4 minutes ago, x99 said:

Parking ramps above and below grade.  Even under the streets.  This has been the solution for obtaining a vibrant downtown in almost every city of Grand Rapids' size.  

If the City has done an empirical study that shows you can get people who aren't generally of below average income to take a bus in a similarly situated city, I would absolutely love to see it.  

As for streets, there's always cleaning up the Division mess.  From 2013:  http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2013/03/after_inconclusive_results_div.html. The failed experiment has gone on for 5 years now, causing clogs on Fulton, Lyon, Pearl--you name it.  We didn't really have daily traffic issues until some wizard decided to cause them on purpose in the name of a "road diet"...  

 

 

 

 

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